To the end of his days, Roberts held a warm regard for Eton. Once when at the end of a great campaign, he was presented with a sword of honor, on this boyhood's drill ground, he said to a younger generation then assembled: "To you boys who intend to enter the army, the studies and sports of this place are your best training. England's greatest general, himself an Etonian, is reported to have said that the battle of Waterloo was won in the Eton playing-fields. In thus expressing himself, the Duke (Wellington) meant that bodily vigor, power of endurance, courage, and rapidity of decision are produced by the manly games which are fostered here."
Undoubtedly there was a personal touch to these remarks, as Roberts recalled how he himself had begun to gain these sterling qualities on the cricket field and gridiron.
When fifteen, he entered the Military College at Sandhurst, but remained there only two terms. By nature he was a studious chap, doing especially well in German and mathematics. So easily did he solve problems in algebra and geometry, that his mates promptly nicknamed him "Deductions."
Leaving Sandhurst, he put in a few months at a preparatory military school at Wimbledon, but his father's return to England, in 1849, marked the first definite step in his plans. Colonel Roberts, after several years away from his son, was delighted to see that the thin chest was indeed filling out, and the shoulders throwing back.
"Do you think you can stand India, now, my lad?" he asked.
"Why not, sir?" replied the boy briefly.
"Then I think that the East India Company's service is the place for you."
Colonel Roberts himself had been connected with this great company, which was the forerunner of the Government in India—and he was right in thinking that its service offered many chances of advancement.
Accordingly the boy was entered in the Company's own military school, at Addiscombe; and in less than two years had become a second lieutenant in the Bengal Artillery—a military company maintained as part of this huge commercial enterprise.
In 1852, in his twentieth year, he received his first marching orders. They were to report for duty. He set sail by way of Suez, but there was no canal in those days to make possible an all-water journey. Instead, at Alexandria he changed to a small inland steamer going by canal and river to Cairo. Thence a hot dusty trek across the desert was necessary, in order to reach Suez.